The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1887-02-15
VISIT TO MINERS HILL.
ONE OF THE PLACES CELEBRATED
IN THE HISTORY OF MORMONISM.

Joe Smith and His Bible-Dictating to an
Am=nuensis-One of the Dupes-Cave
on Miners Hill Bringing Out the
Book.
On returning to the village of Palmyra
we visited another hill which is celebrated
in the annals of Mormon history In
order that the reader may understand
the significance of this hill we must go
back to Joe Smith and his bible. The
book, which, by the way, no one ever
saw, was said to consist Of metal plates,
pierced on one edge, and fastened to-
gether by rings which passed through the
holes. With the book was also found, or
So pretended, a huge pair OF spectacles,
too large for any mortal eyes, which had
the remarkable quality of turning the
hieroglyphcs on the metal plates into
plain English
Smiths scheme required the pubIica-
ton Of his bible. How was he to accOmp-
fish this? No one was allowed to see the
metal plates, and yet Smith could not
write a legible hand. An accomplish was
necessary. But Smith was equal to the
occasion. He engaged one Oliver Cow
derry, a school teacher, to be his scribe,
promising him part of the proceeds of the
book. The Smiths were then living in a
little one-story log house. There were
only two rooms on the ground floor, with
pointed garnet in the roof. Across one
corner of this garnet Smith had a blanket
screen stretched. Behind this screen be
ensconced himself with his magic spec
tacles and his golaJ.eea2. 5Sook (or, as Hussey
a1rrnS' hlS tile brick. Cowdery sat on
the othe2 side of the blanket and wrote
: ~rSS0n Smiths dictatiop.
ONE OF THE DUPES
Martin Harris, wealthy farmer, was
induced to bear the expense of printing
the manuscript But Harris wife was a
woman Of too much good sense to be
Smiths dupe So in the absence of her
husband she put the manuscript in the
stove and burnt it up. Here was a check
in the proceeding, and one, too, that filed
Smith with dismay. He and Harris were
morally certain that Mrs. Harris had
taken the manuscript, but they did not
know It was burned. Smith was unable to
reproduce the book exa ctIy, and he feared
that the first manuscript would be pro-
duced to confOuud him. However, it
wasn't a time TO give up He and his
friends repaired to Miners hill by night,
and there dug a sort of cave on the east
side of the hill The dimensions of this
cave were forty feet deep. sixteen feet
wide, and seven feet high. 4he entrance
was secured by a substantial door of two
inch oak plank. In this dark cave Smith
set about producing a new manuscript,
Cewdery still acting az an amanueDsis.
This copy was more securely guarded; it
is that from which the Mormon bible was
printed in 1922.
Miners hill is about two and a half
miles south OF Palmyra In appearance
it is similar TO Mormon hill, and like it
runs off to the south in a ridge. III the
days of Smith it was heavily wooded
When we visited the hill the timber had
been cut down, and the whole was
slashiLg filled with stumps briers and
burrs We had little difficulty in finding
what used to be the cave. 1t is situated
just below the brow of the hill Eifty-siN
years, however. have left their ravages
Instead of cave we found quite a depres-
sion where the earth had given way and
fallen in. The door had long since disap-
peared. The door-frame, however still
stands there, buried more than half thu
way up III the earth. The frame is
roughly made, the sides not being NOR
tised into the top, but simply secured by
three large spikes driven through each
end of the top piece. We took our knife
and cut off piece of the wood. 1t was
as sound as when the frame was first
made. Hundreds of pee pie, we were
told, annually visit Mormon hill; but few (
ever wend their way through the bTlrrs /
and briers of Miners hill
PRINTED AT LAST.
After a good deal of demurring Mr.
Eabert B. Grandin, the publisher of Toe
Wayne Sentinel, contracted to do the
printing An edition of 5000 copies was |
ordered. The price agreed upon was |
p 600 Harris pledging himself to pay |
the money. 1t happened that at that time |
the leading compOsitor in Mr.. Grandma !
Office was Mr.. John H. Gilbert. Mr.. Gil /
bert, or, as he is now called, Maj. Gilbert,
IS to-day hale man of IS years. 1t was
our good fortune to meet him and have |
long talk about the early days of Nor
monism. He had the chief operative trust
of the typesetting and presswork. He |
got out the first form. There were in all
SIS pages of the bible, AMI of these Gil
bert set up with his own hands over 500.
The original instructions were that no /
alterations whatever from the copy were .
10 be made. But under Gilbert's earnest !
rrotestations these instructions were re
cinded Cowdery, though a tolerable I
penman, was poor in syutaX, photography,
punctuation, etc. The copy furnished him,
Mr. Gilbert assured US, was a solid mass.
IHere was no punctuation, very few
capitals, no paragraphs.
Joe Smith kept in the background. Gil
bert only saw him twice-once in the of
fee for few minutes and once on the
street. Hyrum Smith, his brother,
brought the copy to the Office every morn
:n@, in installments of twenty-four pages,
hnttnned up in his vest, and came for
hem at night. But after much friendly
expostulation Smith in about ten days re-
.aXed his vigilance, and permitted Gil
bert to take the manuscript home to cor
rect and punctuate This was on Gil.
bert's word that he would be responsible
Tor the copy. Grandin read most of the
proof: Gilbert read the rest. The con
tract price of the printing was faithfully
paid by Harris. David Whitmer, who
low lives in Richmond, Mo, has the
or ginal manuscript. A man living in
Wayne county, n. Y, has
he press on which the book was printed.
Tie book was seven months in printing
that is, from August, 1929, to March.
1850.
Mr. Gilbert has one copy of the orig